Network Information Service (NIS) B.11.31.04 Administrator's Guide

2 Planning an NIS Network

This chapter describes how to plan the layout of your NIS network.

This chapter discusses the following topics:

• “Determining the Number of NIS Domains Required” (page 23)

• “Determining the Number of NIS Servers ” (page 23)

• “Determining the Hosts that will be NIS Servers” (page 23)

Determining the Number of NIS Domains Required

For many sites, all hosts can belong to the same domain and it is not necessary to set

up more than one domain. However, you may want to create multiple domains in the

following situations:

• Sites that are divided into multiple administrative departments (like Marketing

and Finance) with a different system administrator for each department where

each system administrator is required to maintain a separate NIS domain.

• Sites that are divided into multiple administrative departments, where each

department requires different configuration data and allows access to different

users and hosts. To ensure separation of data and access, you must create a separate

NIS domain for each administrative department.

Determining the Number of NIS Servers

Following are some guidelines for determining the number of NIS servers required in

an NIS network:

• If you want the client to bind through broadcast method, at least one server must

be present in each subnetwork in a domain. However, by using the ypinit -c

command, you can specify a list of servers to which the NIS client can bind.

• In general, a server can serve up to 30 NIS clients if the clients and servers run at

the same speed. If the clients are faster than the servers, you will need more servers.

If the clients are slower than the servers, each server can serve 50 or more clients.

Determining the Hosts that will be NIS Servers

Following are some guidelines for determining the hosts that can be NIS servers in an

NIS network:

• Select servers that are reliable and fast.

• Distribute servers appropriately among client networks.

Determining the Number of NIS Domains Required 23